


No Solace

by fawatson



Category: The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 15:02:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21163592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fawatson/pseuds/fawatson
Summary: Genly Ai's visit to Estre.





	No Solace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venndaai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/gifts).

> **Request:** Would love something spooky for this canon. Gethen is a harsh spooky place with eerie myths and folktales - perhaps post canon with Estraven as the ghost.
> 
> **Disclaimer:** I do not own these characters and make no profit by them.

I had come intending to tell his story, expecting to stay only a brief while, unburdening myself of my sense of obligation by pouring forth my memories that first night I arrived, and finding some solace in shared mourning for Estraven’s loss. The old lord’s demeanour had checked me. I had known in my head this was the Hearth from which Therem Harth had come; I had failed to understand in my heart what that meant. The reserved, careful man he had been had learned his measured thoughtful approach at his father’s knee. There would be no wild outpouring of grief – no catharsis. 

Old Esvans wanted the story of the Gobrin Ice and that was what I told that first night. Sorve was eager to hear about the man I had known; but Esvans asked about the equipment, and the food, and how we pulled in harness, about the light and the dark, though never about the cold. His questions revealed an intimate knowledge of ice, and I remarked about this and he modestly allowed he had had his own expedition on the Ice years before. 

“Just skirting across the southern tip,” he explained, before asking me about climbing out of crevasses, and how we had navigated our way. I had to admit we had been lost at least once, and come out not quite where we had originally planned. His eyes crinkled at the corners; seeing it leant new meaning to laugh lines. 

It was late before the topic was exhausted and we sought our beds. I should have slept deeply, having walked a good distance before I arrived and then stayed up as long as I had. But I tossed and turned, waking three times in the night with the uneasy sense of being watched, though when I lit the bedside lamp no one was there. Had this been Orgoreyn I might have looked for peepholes with some certainty I would discover someone set to watch me. But this was Estre. 

The next day I ate well and wandered as I pleased but saw nothing of Esvans or the boy until much later when, once again, the old lord received me in his rolling-chair by the fire. This time he asked about Orgoreyn; he had never travelled from Karhide and had curiosity about its neighbour. I found myself trying to describe the Commensals to him and Orgota. Finally, I described Pulefen Farm. He pursed his lips and shook his head. The boy listened and said nothing but I could see the shock in his eyes. 

That night I dreamed of Asra, but not the person I had known: sick, resigned to death, but fearing that unknown journey. The Asra of my dreams was vigorous, his short arms well-muscled. And he joked and laughed as he sanded and waxed a table to a glossy finish, recounting an old Orgota folk-tale to me. I woke twice that night, once again certain someone watched, each time re-entering sleep at the very point my dream had been interrupted. 

Again, the next day I was allowed to explore wherever I wished but saw nothing of my hosts until late in the evening, when the boy came to escort me to his grandfather’s chamber. The old lord sat in his bed, propped up on pillows, a fine blue and grey woven throw smoothed over his legs. “There are days they will not do as they are told,” he explained, “and I am confined here for the duration, though in more luxury than you had on that farm.” His gnarled hands smoothed over the throw, tracing its pattern back and forth. 

“You will leave us in the morning.” 

I nodded. 

“But tonight, you will tell us of Estraven the Traitor.” 

And so I began, as one always does, with the facts. But the truth was not in just the facts but in the reasoning behind events – in the jealousy and ambition of his opponents – in the madness of King Argaven – in the distrust between two nations – in the difference between races – and ultimately in shifgrethor – all of which I tried to communicate. As the night grew short, I felt an overwhelming sense of futility at the limitations of speech. The old lord’s eyes saddened as the tale was told; his hands which had stroked across the covers gradually stilled, resting on a symbol for foretelling, which his right forefinger tapped lightly. The boy’s eyes had moistened with tears at one point, but brightened with an eager hopefulness as I explained the physician’s assurance that many knew the truth of his honour even though it had not yet been proclaimed by the King. 

At the end I was thanked solemnly by Esvans, who assured me that I would be welcome if I chose to visit again. That night I dreamed of Therem. We were on the Ice together, practicing mindspeech. “There is nothing to fear between us,” he told me. “But that is what I told _you_” I replied wonderingly. “You have kept faith with your people and with my memory,” his voice whispered, “as I kept faith with my country and you. Do not grieve.” I woke only once that night, this time imagining a light kiss on my forehead, before I slipped back into now dreamless sleep. 

The next morning I did not see my hosts before I set out to cross Kerm Land once more, heading toward Erhenrang.


End file.
